


Four Days

by Iverna



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, minor Neal Cassidy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 16:17:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21274079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iverna/pseuds/Iverna
Summary: Prompt: "You were only away on your business trip for four days? Why did I miss you so much? OMG I’m in love with you!"Killian has been away on his trip to the Enchanted Forest FOREVER. Or for four days, but who's counting? Certainly not Emma.





	Four Days

**Author's Note:**

> AU/canon divergence where season 3 ended a little differently—no time travel, no Marian, and Neal is still alive.

“So this Gothel lady is from Corona,” Emma says, setting down the book that Belle handed her. “Where is that? Does that tell us anything about what she wants? What her vendetta might be?”

“Don’t look at _me_,” Regina says with a scowl as David, Snow, and Emma all turn to her. “I’ve never been to Corona.”

“Killian might know more,” Neal says. “He’s been to Corona a few times.”

“We’ll ask him when he gets back,” Snow says.

Emma shoves the book away irritably. Of course the one person they need is the one who’s absent. He left ages ago, off to the Enchanted Forest to retrieve all the things Regina needs for her spell, and Emma knows that it’s necessary, but...

He’s taking _forever_.

And in his absence, she’s back to filing her paperwork without anyone to exchange snarky comments about Mr Johnson’s pedantry or Mrs Brown’s obsession with her neighbours. Back to one coffee in the mornings because there’s no pirate to drop by with a hot beverage and a bear claw, and it’s just depressing to walk over to Granny’s on her own.

Her phone never lights up with some irreverent message. There’s no one she can text with her sarcastic thoughts about the dwarves and their ridiculousness.

She’s getting pretty annoyed about it.

“_If_ he gets back,” she mutters.

Snow shoots her an alarmed look. “What do you mean, if?”

Emma shrugs. “Well, he’s been gone for ages, who knows when he’ll decide to get his ass back here. If ever.”

Snow is still frowning. “It’s only been four days.”

That can’t be right. Killian has been gone _forever_—she’s had to sit through several meetings without his snarky comments, she’s had lunch in Granny’s alone without him smirking at her, he definitely left on Tuesday and it’s—

Friday.

_Oh._

“Whatever,” Emma snaps. “He’s always going on about what a great captain he is, you’d think he’d be faster. I mean, he’s got magic beans, it’s straight there and back, can’t be that hard.”

Unless he got side-tracked. It’s been ages since he was in the Enchanted Forest, after all. Maybe he decided to do a bit of pirating on the side. Look for treasure, or loot, or... company.

It’s a ridiculous thought, and she knows it; he’s on a mission, and he’ll follow it through, no distraction. But it still makes Emma want to punch something.

She should’ve gone with him. She _wanted_ to go with him. But she didn’t, because she didn’t want him to think that she didn’t trust him, or that she wanted to spend time with him.

Which is stupid, because they’re _friends_. She doesn’t need to worry about him getting the wrong idea if she spends time with him, not anymore. Sure, he flirts with her, but he flirts with everyone. It doesn’t mean anything.

And sure, he’s attractive, but she’s used to that now. It doesn’t make her heart stutter anymore, and she doesn’t have to worry about doing or saying something stupid, even if she doesn’t have a fight to focus on and distract her.

“Uh-huh,” Snow says slowly, her eyes narrowed in a way that Emma doesn’t like.

“It’s never that simple,” Neal adds, shrugging. “Can’t take the ship through a portal too close to the shore, and it’s not like all this stuff is gonna be conveniently piled up in one place. And with sailing, you’re always kinda dependent on the wind, even on the _Jolly Roger_.”

Emma looks over at him. “You really think it’s normal, to take this long?”

“Yeah.” Neal offers her a smile. “Nothing to worry about yet.”

“I’m not worried,” she says at once.

“Uh-huh,” he says. Sometimes he really does know her. And of course he always picks the _worst_ things to know.

“Yeah.” Emma waves the matter away. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. Let’s just focus on keeping this witch away from Storybrooke.”

* * *

She’s walking down the street with Neal, on her way to meet up with the others for dinner and more strategising, when a loud, rough voice makes her jump.

“He’s _here!_”

“Bloody—” Neal exclaims as he and Emma both whirl around.

Leroy is running down the street towards them. Emma takes a deep, steadying breath and holds up a hand. “Whoah. Who’s what?”

“Hook!” Leroy shouts, out of breath. “Just saw the sails on the—”

“Okay, okay,” Emma says. “Thanks.”

“You should go,” Neal says quickly. “Fill him in, and all that. I’ll tell the others you’ll meet us in Granny’s. Come on, you.”

This last is to Leroy, and before Emma can say anything, Neal and Leroy are walking on, towards Granny’s.

She frowns at Neal’s back. Did she miss something? Ever since he realised that she and he are better off as friends, the weird rivalry he had with Killian seems to have disappeared, so why is he so determined not to go down to meet him? She’s still getting used to new Neal, but one thing hasn’t changed. He still gets the same look on his face when he’s being shifty, and that was definitely Neal-with-an-agenda.

She shrugs the matter away for later. _Someone_ should go down to meet Killian, and make sure everything’s okay, and update him on the situation. It might as well be her.

They’re friends, after all.

By the time she reaches the docks, the _Jolly Roger_ has reached the harbour and is drifting towards its berth. She can hear the shouting as she approaches, see the men scurrying over the deck as they trim the sails and prepare the ropes. Killian is standing at the wheel, a dark figure against the bright blue sky, and she can hear him yelling orders.

Her heart stutters.

He looks like he’s in his element, standing tall and proud on the deck, hair blowing in the wind. She can barely make out his features, but even at this distance he’s far more attractive than anyone has a right to be.

Four days. How has it only been four days?

She waits on the pier to meet him as he saunters down the gangplank. His whole face lights up when he sees her—eyes sparkling, smile wide, as if there’s nothing in the world he’d rather be looking at than her.

She means to stay put, arms crossed, snarky greeting on her lips, but at the sight of him, looking at her like that—she launches herself into his arms.

It catches him off-guard, and he stumbles back a step as his arms go around her. “Hello, love.”

“You’re late,” she says into his shoulder, because she had the quip ready and she’s going to use it, damn it. As she speaks, she realises that she’s grinning as broadly as he is and she can’t seem to stop. Really, it’s just as well that he can’t see her face right now.

“Late?” he echoes. She can feel his voice rumbling in his chest. He’s warm, and it seems to seep into her, spreading through her chest. “We were almost a day faster than estimated.”

“Whatever.”

“Everything all right here?”

“Oh, you know, aside from the usual—evil witches, Regina’s temper, Sneezy’s dumbassery, all that.”

He lets her go so he can look at her, and she tries to arrange her features into something casual, but the smile lingers. Damn it.

But then, his is lingering too.

She missed him. She missed him a lot, him and his stupid smile and his voice and the way it’s not even slightly awkward when she sees him again, it just feels like something slotted back into place.

“How’d it go?” she asks, before he can say anything.

“We procured everything we needed,” he says. “No problem.”

His arms are still around her. Her hands have drifted to his shoulders. That’s not really _friends_ territory, and she should probably step away, but she really doesn’t want to.

“Great.” Not that she doubted it. The moment he volunteered to go, she knew he’d come back with everything they needed.

It takes her a moment to realise that she’s proud of him.

Which is ridiculous, because that’s hardly her place. He’s just so...

Brave. Competent. Amazing. All kinds of things she can never ever tell him.

“Didn’t doubt me, did you?” he asks, that teasing glint in his eyes.

She hates the way he does that. She loves the way he does that.

She hate-loves a lot of things about him.

“Well, you know,” she says, “you _are_ late, so...”

“Slander.” He pretends to scowl at her. “And after I did my utmost to get back as fast as I could. You _are_ hard to impress, aren’t you?”

She has to bite back a giddy sort of laugh. The idea of him trying to hurry back makes her feel better about feeling like four days was forever, even if that’s probably stupid. “I didn’t know you were trying.”

His grin is a touch wry. “Always, love.”

He looks like he means it. She hates it—loves it—when he looks like that. When he says things like that. It’s too much, and it makes her insides squirm, but in a good way.

Her hands are still on his shoulders.

It occurs to her that this isn’t the kind of thing she ever says to or hears from anyone else, friends or no.

The past few days have also been proof that she doesn’t have _any_ other friends whose company she seeks out quite so much, or talks about constantly if she’s not careful, or always wants to tell about whatever the latest ridiculous thing out of Regina’s mouth was. Now he’s back, and she can’t stop looking at him, and smiling at him, and feeling like maybe she’s light enough to just take flight.

The realisation is like a wave—a slow pull, a gentle build-up, and then, all at once, the crash as it tips over and breaks.

And one of the worst—best—things about Killian is the way he makes it so easy to just... _say_ things.

So she blurts it out even as it occurs to her. “I think I love you.”

The words ring in her own ears. He’s staring at her, and several emotions chase each other across his face in rapid succession. Surprise. Disbelief. Worry. She’s pretty sure at one point he’s searching for a way to pretend he didn’t hear her and change the subject.

Then his eyes soften, and he beams at her like she’s every dream he’s ever had, every treasure he’s ever sought.

“I _know_ I love you.”

Those words land somewhere in her stomach, leaving a trail of warmth on the way. It’s hard to look at him, so she glances out across the docks, but she kind of misses looking at him, so her eyes flick back to meet his almost immediately.

She tries a smirk, ignoring the way the butterflies in her stomach are all taking flight at once. “Had to one-up me, huh?”

He laughs. “After all the times you bested me? Aye.”

She leans up to kiss him then, because she loves him, and he loves her, and it’s all a lot less scary than she thought. Because he’s kissing her back, and one of the worst—best—things about Killian is the way he kisses.

She knew that. But she’ll admit that the last—first—time pales in comparison to this. He pulls her closer, and his hand is caressing her cheek and tangling in her hair, and his lips are soft and warm on hers, and her blood is thundering in her ears, thundering and roaring and—_whistling_?

They break apart to find the crew of the _Jolly Roger_ looking down over the railings, grinning and catcalling and applauding. Emma feels heat rise in her face. She forgot about them. She forgot that they’re standing on the pier at the docks, in plain view of everyone. She kind of forgot everything.

Killian leans away from her, and bellows, “Oy! Get back to bloody work!”

“Sorry, cap’n!” one of the men calls down. He doesn’t look sorry at all. In fact, he’s grinning. “All done with work, you musta lost track of time!”

There’s more laughter, and Killian fails to keep his own grin off his face. “I think it more likely that you lot lost track of work!”

“Can’t blame us for getting distracted, since you did!” calls another man, with a cheeky smirk at Emma.

Killian narrows his eyes, but before he can reply, Emma yells up, “Don’t be jealous, Hawkins. Granny’s been asking for you, you know!”

That prompts more jeering and laughter from the group on deck, only now most of it is directed at a glowering Hawkins. Emma is still blushing, but she can’t help laughing, and Killian joins in.

“Pirates,” he says, heaving a put-upon sigh, the effect of which is ruined by the way he’s still grinning. “Whatever you do, stay away from pirates. No manners whatsoever.”

Emma pretends to glare at him. “_Now_ you tell me. It’s a bit late.”

“Hmm. Fell for one, did you?”

She almost laughs at how easy it suddenly is to admit. “I might’ve.”

“Terrible.” He sways forward and steals another kiss, prompting more whistles from the ship.

“Come on.” Emma grabs his hand. “Regina’s gonna want those supplies, and everyone’s expecting us in Granny’s.”

“Of course they are,” he says with a sigh, but he’s gripping her hand in his and smiling as he falls into step beside her. It already feels like second nature, like this is how things should be. Like she’s finally realised what’s been there all along.

Maybe those four days, long as they were, weren’t such a bad thing after all.


End file.
